Pride In The City

Its that time of year again...time for Pride in the City! We have one of the largest pride celebrations in the United States here in San Francisco, and guess what? Were proud of it! Everyone has a good time at pride those Out and those of us who support them. Pride is one of the City's events that remains fun. Unlike Halloween, which has sadly been taken over by thugs, and recently been removed from City sanctioned events. But on to happier topics... besides the parade we have the Frameline LGBT film festival. It was as a part of this festival that I first saw the film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Nothing can beat the packed house at the Castro theater singing along to Wig In A Box! I'm so excited to see what they are offering this year.

This morning the Violet Blue sex columnist to the Chronicle posted this article on how to fly with your sex toys. I think some one should have posted something like this a long long long time ago. The article reminded me of a time when my Mom came out to visit long before September 11th. She was hosting a bachelorette party for her best friend in the weeks following her visit. I told her about the local sex shop that has taken a lot of the taboo out of fetish objects and porn, and made it more educational. You know, the neighborhood sex shop purveyors Good Vibrations.

We headed there to buy some goodies for the party. One of the things we bought was a ridiculously big (and I mean big) silicone dildo. Heading home my Mom put the penis ice trays and booby candy in her carry on along with the dildo. Sex toys don't come cheap and they aren't something you want to lose. Going through the security line the TSA agent stopped her luggage. The same agent then searched her luggage. He laughed and waived over a female agent they began to giggle and proceeded to call another agent over. By now the anger is building in my Mom because they're holding her up. Curiosity is one thing of course they were giggling the way we were in the sex shop, but they were doing it at work. Big difference. Also they didn't know if it was for her personal use and they were making a show of what was in the bag.

By this time, no longer going through the metal detector, Mom was at the end of the conveyor just waiting for them to finish. Having had enough she reached down into the bag pulled out the enormous dildo waved it in the air and started screaming, "Here is this what your laughing at? If you pull it out of the bag everyone can have a better look!" Their faces went white and the TSA Supervisor ran over. The Supervisor could not apologize enough, put the item back in the bag and wished my Mom a safe flight.

The moral? Well, if none of Violet's tricks work for you take control of the situation yourself. And hinting at a lawsuit wouldn't be bad either...

The TSA Hates Your Vibrator / How to safely fly with your sex toys